


The Garden of Earthly Delights

by gallagherfamilyreunion (PrincessPeach)



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Caretaking, Domestic Fluff, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1815184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessPeach/pseuds/gallagherfamilyreunion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Mickey thinks a little gardening therapy might be the ticket to helping Ian; basically a snapshot to reassure myself that everything is gonna be OK after that brutal season 4 finale. :/</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Garden of Earthly Delights

**Author's Note:**

> For Gallavich Week 2k14, Day : Domestic. Set after 4x12, this assumes Ian's bipolar diagnosis is confirmed and deals directly with that so just a heads up.

“Mickey, I swear to God that’s all of it,” Kev insisted as Mickey sat at the bar and glumly counted the small stack of bills. “It might be time to accept that the rub-and-tug isn’t exactly turning out to be the cash cow we thought it would.”

“Fuck,” said Mickey, rubbing his face in exhaustion. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Hey, can we get that on record?” Kev called out to the bar at large, which mid-afternoon consisted of Frank, Kermit and a couple of other regulars. “The All-Knowing Milkovich has admitted that I, Kevin Ball, might be right about something.”

“Shut up, man, you sound like my wife.”

Kev chuckled sympathetically. “So how are things with the missus and little one?”

“Fine,” said Mickey, pausing for a drink. “Better than they were, anyway. I’ve been spending more time with the kid, she’s been spending more time eating pussy, everyone’s happy.”

“Shit,” Kev replied, shaking his head in disbelief and then leaning over the bar confidentially. “Just out of curiosity, I gotta ask: The thought of that leggy Russian ice queen going down on another chick doesn’t do anything for you?”

The question earned him a what-the-fuck expression from Mickey, with a bonus “That’s none of your fucking business.”

“Fair enough,” Kev admitted. “Speaking of none of my business, haven’t seen Ian around lately. How’s he doing?”

“Okay, I guess,” said Mickey. “He’s been doing going to this therapy, but it’s still rough sometimes. I just wish I understood more of it so I wouldn’t feel so friggin’ useless.”

“Well, he’s lucky to have you,” Kev said without batting an eye, adding an “Ah, shit,” when his phone began to ring loudly.

“Hey babe,” he answered it. “Um, not yet. No. I will. I know. Tomorrow. Yes. Love you too.”

Kev hung up with a sigh. “Hey Mickey, you know where I could get some dirt?”

Mickey stared at him blankly for a moment while he processed the request. “Dirt,” he repeated. “Dirt like… dirt.”

“No, dirt like bricks of gold,” Kev replied sarcastically.

“What the fuck do you need dirt for?”

“Vee’s been on my case about getting this garden planted,” he explained. “Ethel took care of all that last year, but now it looks like it’s just gonna be a huge pain in my ass.”

“A garden, huh,” said Mickey, the vague outline of a plan beginning to form in his head. “At your house?”

“Yeah, out back. Why?”

“Can I get back to you on that?” he replied, which only served to confuse Kev further.

“Uh, yeah…”

“Thanks, gotta go.” Mickey grabbed his cut of the earnings and took off.

* * *

After Ian’s diagnosis had been confirmed, Mickey read up on everything about bipolar disorder that he could get his hands on (with help from a somewhat reluctant Lip Gallagher). One of the things that had stuck with him was the importance of routine and developing hobbies as part of therapy, but so far Mickey felt like he had failed miserably in that regard.

Ian either rejected the activity outright, like with Debbie’s offer to teach him to crochet, or quickly lost interest once he began, like with the set of brand-new art supplies he had barely touched, a single half-finished watercolor still life taped to the wall in his room at the Milkovich house the only remaining evidence of that pursuit.

But despite the lack of a single, focused hobby things had definitely improved, especially since they’d gotten his meds regulated. Ian was still Ian—he had never _not_ been, obviously, even in those darkest early days—but sometimes Mickey caught him with a strange look in his eye and knew without even asking that it weighed heavy on his mind.

“I feel like I’m a ticking time bomb,” Ian confessed late one night in bed. Mickey, who had been lightly dozing, rolled over to see him lying flat on his back and staring at the ceiling with wide-open eyes.

“What?” he’d asked groggily, but Ian wouldn’t elaborate—he simply turned on his side, and that was the first and last he ever talked about it. 

So Mickey was willing to try anything that seemed like it might help even a little bit, up to and including the plan that Kev had just inspired.

“Hi Mick,” Ian’s chipper greeting came from the kitchen as Mickey walked inside, and he could tell that it had been a good day.

He received a much less upbeat welcome from Mandy, who was minding Yevgeny for the day and currently occupying his attention by rolling a wooden train past him on the living room floor. “Hey, asshole,” she said to Mickey.

“Could you not swear in front of my kid, please?”

“Sure,” Mandy replied with a sarcastic grin as she flipped him off.

Mickey shook his head and walked away, eager to discuss his idea with Ian.

“I’m making scrambled eggs for Mandy and Yev,” the redhead explained. “Want some?”

“No thanks,” said Mickey. “I might need your help with something, though.”

“Oh yeah? What?” Ian listened with interest—and a brief interlude for scrambled-egg service—as Mickey told him about Kev and Veronica’s garden dilemma.

“I’ve never gardened before,” Ian pointed out when he finished.

“Neither have I, but it can’t be that hard, right?”

“Mmmhmm,” replied Ian noncommittally, seeming a little lost in his thoughts. “In school one time we planted these chrysanthemums in Styrofoam cups,” he told Mickey. “When they started to sprout we brought them home, and I set mine on the windowsill to make sure it got enough sunlight… and then completely forgot about it. It died in a week.”

“Shit,” said Mickey. “Well, luckily we’re not planting fucking chrysanthe-whatevers. It’s like beans and tomatoes and shit; that stuff is foolproof.”

“This isn’t another one of your tricks to make me find a hobby, is it?”

“What? No. Well, sort of,” he confessed, caving under Ian’s chastising stare. “But Kev really does need help with his garden. It’s, uh, what do you call it? Mutually assured destruction.”

“You mean mutually beneficial?”

“Yeah, that too.”

* * *

Mickey thought he had prepared himself for a challenge, but when he and Ian went to check out the garden the next day it looked even rougher than he’d imagined. The plot was small, maybe ten feet square, but completely filled with dead brown stalks and crunchy dried-up leaves, remains of last season’s planting that had never been cleared away. The only signs of life were, of course, the mountains of weeds overwhelming everything.

“Well,” said Ian as he pulled on a pair of thick canvas work gloves, “guess we’re gonna be starting from scratch.” He handed another pair of gloves to Mickey, who accepted them reluctantly. “Stop it,” he said when he saw the face Mickey was making. “This was your idea, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mickey replied, surveying the disheartening scene. He began to formulate a plan of attack but quickly realized that it didn’t really matter and dove right in, pulling out a large, leafy dandelion by its roots. Ian followed suit and they worked their way down the plot side by side, quickly working up a sweat as the sun climbed toward its peak.

The weeds actually weren’t that bad; it had rained a couple of nights before, softening the ground enough so they pulled out pretty easily. It was the dead crops themselves that were the real son-of-a-bitch, deeply rooted and stubborn as hell.

“Don’t people usually use some kind of equipment for this shit?” Mickey wondered. “Like a fucking backhoe or something?”

“It’s a ten-foot plot, we don’t need a backhoe,” Ian pointed out. “Besides, it builds character.”

“Character, my ass. I need a break.”

“Already?”

“Fuck you, ‘already,’ we’ve been at this for like two hours.”

“Yeah,” said Ian, “but there is something satisfying about it, isn’t there? Look what we’ve already accomplished.”

It was true that they’d cleared more than half the plot already, not bad for a morning’s work.

“I guess,” Mickey said. “I’m gonna grab a beer, you want one?”

“Nah, just water,” Ian replied, and Mickey couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” asked Ian.

“You must be the only Gallagher who’s ever spoken that sentence, you know?”

“Yeah, keep it on the down-low, though. We’ve got a reputation to protect.”

Mickey disappeared into Kev and Veronica’s house, returning a moment later with two glasses of ice water. Ian finally stopped working and they sat on the back stoop to rest, sweat and dirt covering their skin and clothes. The day was beautiful if you weren’t performing backbreaking manual labor, with big, billowy clouds creating picture-perfect formations across the vivid blue sky.

“Think we can finish up today?” asked Mickey, taking a swig of his water and feeling instantly refreshed.

Ian shrugged. “Maybe with the planting,” he speculated. “But it’ll still need work—weeding and watering and checking for bugs and shit.”

“So it’s like an ongoing thing, is what you’re saying,” Mickey paraphrased. “But just because it might take some effort doesn’t mean it’s not worth it, right?”

Ian suddenly smirked as he caught Mickey’s drift. “You should leave the metaphors to Lip,” he suggested. “They’re not your strong suit.”

“Oh yeah, smart guy?” Mickey replied, eyebrows raised. “What would you say is my strong suit, then?”

Ian recognized an open invitation when he heard one. He seized the opportunity to move in for an eager kiss, grabbing the front of Mickey’s sweat-stained shirt to pull him closer. Mickey paid no attention to the grime either as he brought his hand to the back of Ian’s head to intensify the kiss. After a moment they broke apart, Ian staring at Mickey with alarming seriousness.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I love you,” Ian told him with clear-eyed confidence. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but it was the first time that didn’t involve copious amounts of booze, or the heat of passion, or both. “You don’t have to—”

“Shit, I do,” Mickey interrupted him, not ready to say the sentence out loud but hoping he’d managed to convey his feelings nonetheless, kissing Ian briefly but forcefully to underscore his point. “You know I do.

“Now let’s go get this fucking garden planted.”

* * *

“Ian!” Fiona exclaimed when he walked in the back door of the Gallagher house a few weeks later, her face lighting up with a smile. “Hey Mickey,” she added as he tried to sneak in without attracting too much attention. “What are you guys up to?”

“Tomatoes,” said Ian, eliciting a confused expression from Fiona until he deposited a brown paper bag brimming with produce on the kitchen table. “And cucumbers. And um, rhubarb.”

“I still don’t think that rhubarb shit is edible,” Mickey added as fair warning.

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to eat it raw,” Ian explained. “It’s for like, baking and stuff.”

“I have a great strawberry-rhubarb pie recipe from Aunt Ginger,” Debbie chimed in, stepping away from her daycare charges for a moment (leaving them under Carl’s questionable care) to investigate the commotion in the kitchen.

“See? There you go,” said Ian. “Hey Debs,” he added, greeting his sister with a hug. “How’s daycare going?”

Debbie rolled her eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll manage,” she assured him.

“All of this is from Kev and Vee’s garden, huh?” said Fiona as she examined the assorted vegetables and fruits.

“Yep,” Ian confirmed. “It’s doing really well.”

“All thanks to Ian,” Mickey pointed out, eager to give his boyfriend the credit he deserved.

“Well, I’m impressed,” said Fiona. “Good for you.”

Ian shrugged off the compliment, but Mickey could tell that his sister’s praise meant more to him than he’d ever admit.

“You two sticking around for dinner?” Fiona asked.

A sense of weightlessness came over Mickey when he caught Ian’s eyes and saw that, for the moment, he looked wholly untroubled. After reaching an unspoken agreement, it was Ian who answered.

“Sure. “

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay well thanks for reading as always! :) Hit me up on tumblr at [gallagherfamilyreunion](http://gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com), where you'll find me flailing about Ian and Mickey/aggressively defending the honor of the Shameless ladies.


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